Slowly slowly, inching closer

We are getting closer and I'm starting to feel a twinge of excitement. Bikeman and I spent about 4 hours designing what we think would be a great plan for us and Bikeman has come up with an excellent plan, which I think captures the beauty of the views as well as keeping some of the fundamentals of other plans we have seen (open plan living with prominent alfresco). He is so clever! We are going to meet with a guy he knows through work who is an architect, who will hopefully tweak the design and give us some new ideas. We need to call the local builder, too, and go and speak to the builder further. Hopefully the costs won't blow out with all this wonderful designing we have been doing, at least it has forced us to think about the things that are really important to us and how we might go about making them happen. Exciting!

I wish I was an architect...

If I was then this would be much simpler. Could just whip myself up a beautiful plan with all the right proportions and know exactly what it would look like. So we need to bring in the experts - going to talk to someone who knows about that sort of stuff who might be able to design it all for us. Fingers crossed!

A little closer ...

Today I spoke to the local builder who was really very helpful. Provided a quote for a house which was really quite competitive (although a little bigger than what we originally were looking at) but nonetheless is in the ballpark. Food for thought. And opens up a whole world of possibilities. What if we put this room here, or made that room bigger, or added a corridor here or a powder room there .... the possibilities. And how do you go back to 'not that' later? Hmmm not sure about that. We spent 3 hours last night sitting at the table drawing and rubbing out and moving and changing to create our 'dream house'. I think we are getting closer but we need to really nut out what it is we want to see in the house and design around that. So that will be our task this weekend! Wish us luck!

Be patient young grasshopper....

We decided just before Christmas that the time had come to move house. Not that we don't love our house, but we just wanted somewhere different for our kids to grow up. Initially we looked at established houses. Some were ok, usually some bits that were great and some that weren't so great.There wasn't a huge range, so we started to think about building. So we started by looking for a house - spent hours and hours looking through display homes. The kids were happy to start with (finding 'their' rooms in each one) until it all became a bit boring. So we had narrowed the builders down to M3tricon, or P@rter Davis, and had a bit of an idea about what sort of land we were looking for. So then the search for land took off. We looked at Romsey, Riddells Creek, Diggers Rest and Lancefield but settled on the beautiful (and slightly less expensive!) land at Romsey. We searched estates, to finally find out land which was just perfect. Beautiful views, great size and within our price range. Made an offer - and voila! We are now landowners. So the search for the house really steps up. Builder is now narrowed down to PD, we just have to decide on a house. We find one - the Bridgeport 35 . Pretty much what we want, beautiful alfresco room and with some great entertaining areas. So we signed up, and organised to do our own site cut. This went through no problem and we thought it would save us a heap of money at contract stage. Not quite as expected ... while according to PD it did save us a heap of money (most pay in excess of $30k OMG!) we were still up for nearly $12k in site costs! Upgrade in slab, piering, etc etc ... plus there were a few other issues which we were not happy about (location on block, drainage requirements, retaining wall, to name a few). So we cooled it for a bit to think about what we wanted to do. Spoke to a local builder, who was extremely helpful. Willing to make many more changes than PD for no charge to the plan, but of course was going to be more expensive (we think ... still waiting on the costings). We were booked in for a second contract appointment and the evening before we were due to go our good friend 'Indecisive' sheepishly advised me there was a new house listed by PD.... OUR house but different ... how could we not look? The Sandhurst, brand spanking new at Cranbourne (open for only 4 days at this point). So ... went in for our second contract appt. Advised the CSR we were looking at a different house and she nearly fell off her chair, especially considering how hard we had argued our various issues. Was very gracious however, and advised us of our options moving forward. I went straight down to visit the Sandhurst 33 at Cranbourne. Fantastic. Even better than the Bridgeport. Loved the kitchen. Bedrooms were bigger. And the 36 had a games room. 'Bikeman' went to have a look that weekend, and we both agreed it was better. So the goalposts had changed. If it was to be PD, it was to be the Sandhurst 36. Move forward one step, move back 10 ... :-0 So right at this point, where are we know (I hear you ask!). That is a very good question. *We have signed up for the Sandhurst 36 with PD (at Sales Quote stage only, with tiles chosen - waiting to hear back re Contract appointments, Hopetoun, Electrical). We are unsure whether we are going to have similar issues to what we have encountered already so far and are feeling a little nervous about any issues that may arise being difficult to resolve. *We are waiting to hear from the local builder regarding a quote on a similar design to see if it is even in our budget at all. And then to consider whether I can mentally copy with 'designing' a house that I don't know the feel of. Or have been in. I'm waiting to be excited. I want to be excited. I need to make a decision on one or the other to move on. I have no patience. And I keep thinking of our poor block waiting waiting waiting for a house....

We have a blog.....

Oh my god I have no idea what I am doing! Well I've ventured into the world of blogs and here is my first post. I'm a little surprised that this is my first view of the blog! Stay tuned to our site to hear all the trials and tribulations of our journey ... let's hope *wishful thinking* that it will be smooth sailing!